So water witching works to find not only water, but natural gas lines and aluminum cans?

Come on. If it were scientific, it would only work on certain things, not on just anything buried underground.

And it would work only with certain kinds of rods, not coat hangers, tree branches, etc.

OK, so "water witching" is not using copper rods to locate underground pipes. Water witching is using a peach limb to try and find a good spot to dig a water well. It's an old-timer thing that supposedly those guys that dug hand dug wells years ago used to find a "good" water source. I am pretty sure this was complete BS.

Walking around with copper rods to find underground pipes is actually a thing, and does work to a certain extent. I learned this from some sprinkler contractor guys at a large ranch that I had a summer job at in high school (Red Adair's ranch, as a matter of fact) . I have used it in the past with pretty good success. I got fascinated with this at one point because it does actually work, so I spent a bit of time researching it. It has nothing to do with magnetic fields and some of the other outlandish things you read. It works as well for plastic conduit and PVC pipe as it does for metal pipe.

I read a very plausible explanation that I think explains why "divining rods" work and I really think this is the correct explanation. A guy on a forum had mentioned he was driving across his pasture in his tractor and felt where he had buried a water line years ago. From the naked eye, he could not see or feel the dip (or hump) walking across it and looking at it, but it was very noticeable in his tractor. His theory was that you can never really get the ground back to *exact* grade after burying a pipe of the like. When you walk across these areas with the rods, you unknowingly transfer that slight "jolt" through your body to the rods and that is what causes them to cross.

My parents in the hill country have had 2 crappy wells. 1-2 gallons a minute. Well company drilled 20 years ago in several likely spots and we had thousands of dollars invested in some nice post holes.

Recently had a guy come out and witch for asource and in the middle of a field away from anywhere you would think there would be a stream the dude hit. Drilled right where he said. Now they have a 30 gallon a minute well.

I don't know how it works but it does.

I believe people believe it works.
I also believe its about as real as unicorns.

Yeah….

I'm squarely in camp bullcrap myself. Im not sure exactly what makes it so prevalent as a thing but I believe it mostly to be confirmation bias. For the small fraction that hit by luck or previous knowledge, there are a ton that don't and we just blow those off, we only get excited and tell friends about the ones that got lucky.

I'm a science guy. If if can't be explained with science or tested with the scientific method, I call total absolute and unequivocal bullcrap.

Our church council leader uses witching to find graves. He claims if the rods go left, it's a female. Right, male.

He also is on the County cemetery preservation team.



Also... what's the difference b/t a graveyard and a cemetery?

Cemeteries are stand-alone
Graveyards are next to a church

Had an old timer teach me this many moons ago. Have never tried it for water locating but have used it numerous times to confirm buried line location along with dig tess markings and a metal detector. It works better out in the open because if there are trees around I have had it pick the roots up instead of the buried line.

We had one come out to my land west of Fort Worth. Had talked for a couple of years about getting a well since the water line at the road is tapped out. My neighbor whole family had been out there since the 1880s was like "there ain't no water". They had drilled a couple and come out poor water and low flow.


We had a water Witcher come out and hit a solid well.

My grandfathers home is built where it is because of witching for a well. My grandfather and his father in-law held willow limbs that were forked. An inverted Y. Walk around and when the limb pointed down, you found water.
I saw my grandfather show me how to do this. I could not get it to work. The father in-law was known in the community to be very good at it and found several families home sites based on where he found the water. He held the limb so tight that the smooth bark on the forked willow branch peeled off in his hands.
Old timers say some are able to do this better than others. For some it doesn't work. Or so they say.

Believe what you want. That house is still there with a serviceable well built in 1955.

BrazosDog02 said:

---

Yeah….

I'm squarely in camp bullcrap myself. Im not sure exactly what makes it so prevalent as a thing but I believe it mostly to be confirmation bias. For the small fraction that hit by luck or previous knowledge, there are a ton that don't and we just blow those off, we only get excited and tell friends about the ones that got lucky.

I'm a science guy. If if can't be explained with science or tested with the scientific method, I call total absolute and unequivocal bullcrap.

---

See ya at Sunday school!

Had a Witcher come out and witch for a well on our place in north east Callahan county. He said there was water in a certain spot about 200' down. He dug a dry well and then said it collapsed when we confronted him about the depth only being about 50'. Pretty sure he was a fraud.

Hired another driller with a much better reputation. He said witching is a hoax. Drilled about 10 yards further and hit water at 250' but it was very brackish and couldn't use it.

I think it's a lot of confirmation bias and hitting water anyone back in the old days when the aquifers were much larger and prevalent.

Used copper rods to locate a sewer line we were tying into for a RV site, the crew doing the digging wanted to give up and try a different spot after getting down about 30 inches but convinced them to keep going and hit the line after another foot down.
I convinced the crew foreman to try using the rods and had him walk across an area where I knew there was a water line, the rods crossed when he walked over it and he about freaked out. He was Hispanic and was just about convinced about the "witch' part of the experience. You can disbelieve all you want but until you try it or see someone else try it you are just speculating. I don't know how it works but I can assure you that some people have the ability.

I saw the limb turn down. I had my hands on my grandpas hands.